MOBILE, Alabama -- When the Mobile County school board launched the "Stuff the Bus" toy drive, they hoped for a good response from students and employees.

But the drive reaped far more than they expected -- 6,767 toys, enough to fill two buses.

Last week, the school system sent out “It Starts With Us” buses to each of the 12 high schools and to the two career-technical centers to collect the donations.

The schools had been collecting the toys since late November.

The toy drive was a partnership with WKRG's annual Great Toy Drive. The overall goal was to collect 20,000 toys for the Salvation Army to distribute to 5,000 families, according to the station.

This was the first year for the school-system-wide toy drive, said Rena Philips, the system's supervisor of marketing and education partnerships.

Many Mobile County schools already hold their own toy drives, she said, which made it even more exciting to have such a large response for "Stuff the Bus."

"We just really didn’t know what to expect, and this just blew us all away," Philips said.

The high schools served as collection sites for nearby elementary and middle schools, many of which brought carloads full of toys before the bus arrived, she said.

"The neat thing is, we know that a lot of the kids who are going to get these toys are our Mobile County students, and this was something the students could do to help each other," Philips said. "A student at E.R. Dickson said, 'We're going to show what kids can do,' and that’s exactly what they did. They all pulled together."

The two buses were filled front to back and as high as the windows, Philips said. The school system's transportation department removed the seats in the two buses to make extra room.

"It was just really cool that we could take these old buses and use them for good," she said.

The students enjoyed the partnership with WKRG, and made several TV appearances to promote the drive, Philips said. "The kids just loved it. ... Just hearing their responses made it all worthwhile."

And the toy drive is very much a part of the "It Starts With Us" campaign, she added. "We wanted to emphasize that community service 'starts with us.' Caring for your community can start with something as simple as bringing in a toy."

Baker High School students made a video of the toy collections at their school and the schools in its feeder pattern -- Collier, Hutchens, Dawes, O'Rourke and Taylor-White elementary schools and Causey Middle School. It includes appearances by Baker Principal Clem Richardson -- and, of course, Santa Claus. (See below.)

(Updated at noon with comments from Rena Philips, the school system's supervisor of marketing and education partnerships.)